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Mercies in the American desert : poems / Benjamin Landry.
Van Pelt Library PS3612.A5487 M47 2021
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Landry, Benjamin, author.
- Language:
- English
- Genre:
- Poetry.
- Physical Description:
- 77 pages ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2021]
- Summary:
- "Reflecting on the Salem witch trials, Puritan minister Cotton Mather cautioned his audience against the moral temptations of the unknown wild, located in what he termed an American desert. Today, we understand that our troubles have their origins not in some ambiguous beyond; rather, they are of our own making. Benjamin Landry's "Mercies in the American Desert" attempts a clear-eyed reckoning with the people and the nation we have become, from gun violence to state-sanctioned racism and brutality. This vivid collection considers a range of bodies encompassing the geographic, the personal, and the political. It locates solace in movement, sound, and observation, as when Pina Bausch heron-dances down a traffic median, or when the expansive form of a surfacing manta ray teaches us how to breathe again. Incorporating short bursts of prose poem alongside longer meditations, and working in both alliterative and narrative modes, "Mercies in the American Desert" conjures a redemptive wildness for our time"-- Provided by publisher.
- Contents:
- Machine generated contents note: I. Meep Meep
- Espalier
- Scuttling
- Pina
- Undergrowth
- Bunyan
- Hydrangeas
- Old Marble Vast
- For Those Who Would Squander Love, the Earthworm Has Five Hearts
- Private Booth
- Museum on Fire
- African Grey
- Still Life
- Slippers and Underthings
- Shaft of Light
- Mercies in the American Desart
- II. [Darling]
- Recess
- Ear Worm
- She Asked Me to Explain
- Where Once
- Stock Ponds
- Surely You Jest
- Aquarium
- Sing
- Black Banks
- Dream of Zenyatta Dancing
- Clean Slate
- Time of Asters
- Idyll
- At the Mouth of the St. Lawrence
- From Atlanta
- Night Vision
- That Other Life
- III. Left in Charge of the Garden
- At a Remove
- Unlearning Object Permanence
- Shelter
- Lineage
- Gina Haspel and the Honey Bee
- How Many Will Be Too Many
- O, Sorority
- Neighborly
- Parkland
- Favor
- Working Labor Day
- Recent Dispatch
- Never Been
- Venus Crossing
- Aubade.
- Other Format:
- Online version: Landry, Benjamin. Mercies in the American desert
- ISBN:
- 9780807173114
- 0807173118
- OCLC:
- 1161997233
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